on my dressing-gown (being partly
undressed) and went back to the boudoir. I hardly knew what impulse
impelled me to do so, and neither do I know why I went from the boudoir
to the balcony unless it was in hope of the melancholy joy of standing
once more where Martin and I had stood together a little while ago.

I was alone now. The low thunder was still rolling along the cliffs, but
I hardly heard it. The white sheet lightning was still pulsing in the
sky and rising, as it seemed, out of the sea, but I hardly saw it.

At one moment I caught a glimpse of a solitary fishing boat, under its
brown lugger sails, heading towards Blackwater; at the next moment my
eyes were dazzled as by a flashlight from some unseen battleship.

Leaning over the balcony and gazing into the intermittent darkness I
pictured to myself the barren desolation of Martin's life after he had
left me. Loving me so much he might fall into some excess, perhaps some
vice, and if that happened what would be the measure of my
responsibility?

Losing me he might lose his faith in God. I had read of men becoming
spiritual castaways after they had lost their anchorage in some great
love, and I asked myself what should I do if Martin became an infidel.

And when I told myself that I could only save Martin's soul by
sacrificing my own I was overwhelmed by a love so great that I thought I
could do even that.

"Martin! Martin! Forgive me, forgive me," I cried.

I felt so hot that I opened my dressing-gown to cool my bare breast.
After a while I began to shiver and then fearing I might take cold I
went back to the boudoir, and sat down.

I looked at my cuckoo clock. It was half-past twelve. Only half an hour
since Martin had left me! It seemed like hours and hours. What of the
years and years of my life that I had still to spend without him?

The room was so terribly silent, yet it seemed to be full of our dead
laughter. The ghost of our happiness seemed to haunt it. I was sure I
could never live in it again.

I wondered what Martin would be doing now. Would he be in bed and
asleep, or sitting up like this, and thinking of me as I was thinking of
him?

At one moment I thought I heard his footsteps. I listened, but the sound
stopped. At another moment, covering my face with my hands, I thought I
saw him in his room, as plainly as if there were no walls dividing us.
He was holding out his hands to me, and his face had the yearning,
loving, despairing ex